"Oh, it's not that. However fond, they couldn't marry without her bringing her husband a fixed portion. It is the law in this country, in the case of officers of the army,--to keep up the dignity of that impressive body, you understand. In the case of a lieutenant the _dote_, or dowry, must be forty thousand francs. I learned the exact sum for the first time last night." "How much is that? Let me see,"--Mrs. Hawthorne did mental arithmetic, rather quickly for a woman,--"eight thousand dollars. And the Fosses can't give it." "Of their ability to give it if they wished to I am no judge. I dare say they could, though with their son John going before long to hang out his shingle, as they call it, I doubt if it could be without bleeding themselves. But they are not convinced that the sacrifice ought to be made." He frowned at the pattern on the rug, and suddenly cut at it impatiently with his stick. "It is a singular story, in which everybody is right and the result wrong, horribly wrong!" "Oh, dear me!" sighed Mrs. Hawthorne, feeling with him even before understanding. "I ought perhaps to say," he corrected, "everybody is good and well-meaning, but has been unwise. And everybody now has to pay." "I've thought right along that the Fosses had some reason for not being very happy," said Mrs. Hawthorne, "and I guessed it was something about Brenda. But they never said anything, and I didn't try to make out. Brenda doesn't take to me, somehow, as the others do. I'm not her kind, of course; but I do adore her from afar. She's so beautiful! She's like a person in a story-book, who at the end dies, looking at the sunset over the sea, or else marries the prince." "Yes, Brenda is wonderful." "I never should take her for an American."